Steven Assael's composition + technique

[Marcus Lim]

Originally Posted by Richard Budig

Doesn't matter how you draw your grid or squares, so long as they are repeatable in the new, larger or smaller format...

I agree with Richard. When i first saw Assael's demo, and this strange looking gridding system, i was absolutely stumped by it (And yes Claudemir, it gave me a headache when i saw it too!)

. So i thought i'd start this thread, and hope in our discussions we may find the logic behind this complex looking gridding...

[Jeff Fuchs]

The question is: Why use grids when painting from life? Assael only paints from life, and I think I've seen another photo from this demonstration that shows the models in the room. Seems like grids are only useful for transferring from two dimensional images.

I'd imagine he intended the grid as a compositional tool, as already suggested here. This painting was done at a conference in San Francisco, I believe, and the grid may have been made more conspicuous for the sake of the audience.

[Marcus Lim]

Originally Posted by Jeff Fuchs

The question is: Why use grids when painting from life? Assael only paints from life....

Good question Jeff. I thought about this for a while after you posed this question, and i reckon it's for the audience's sake, like what you mentioned before.

I do also see that this is a large painting, and the subject matter does look serene and peaceful. Theoretically having the grid, to help him gain a balance, may be just the thing to help him create that spatial balance on the canvas.

Correct me if i'm wrong guys.

[Richard Budig]

Marcus:

I think you're right (in the post preceding this one), that perhaps these grids/lines give him a sens of balance and help in placement. With those diamond shapes, he can visually judge where his figures are on the canvas . . . not that this isn't possible, anyway. But, with the grid(s), which will eventually disappear, he can get a quick sense of place, balance, structure, and perhaps, snoop out some ideas for additions or adornments or whatever. It looks to me as though he has mor or less halved the canvas, and then halved the top half again, and dropped a couple of light-lined verticals. Again, to my sense, it may help him with his "mental" picture.

[Marcus Lim]

Originally Posted by Richard Budig

...With those diamond shapes, he can visually judge where his figures are on the canvas . . . not that this isn't possible, anyway. But, with the grid(s), which will eventually disappear, he can get a quick sense of place, balance, structure, and perhaps, snoop out some ideas for additions or adornments or whatever...

You certainly took the words right out of my mouth Richard! In fact now that you mentioned it, i remembered i just saw the mural done by Sargent for the Boston Public Library, and if you can imagine these construction lines on this mural, you can see that this works out right too.

And at the same time, Sargent challenges this balance by "offsetting" the characters a little bit (compare the pharoah's distance from the centre line, vs the barbarian's distance from the same line)
This again shows his unique quality, bending the rules and challenging compositional conventions of his time.